12/11/22

Storyboard class was successful with 15+ students who signed up. The reference material used in the preparation was on point for the topics discussed.

Timewise, it could be managed better as I over prepped and ended up with 3 hrs of class. The 1st hour passed VERY fast. Google meet take a while to process the recording as its stored online for easier sharing options.

Future workshops in consideration

• composition in storyboarding

• Action choreography

11/21/22

Long term committed students are drawing much simpler and with better understanding using ‘short hands’ to describe complex form. The starting students who struggled with ‘scratch marks’ are drawing with clean / simple lines after a few weeks.

notes

-identify and explain bad drawing habits and demonstrate with simple shapes/forms.

- teaching flow and simple form by showing animator drawings , disney, anime, etc.

- work with correcting 1 thing at a time to build GOOD habit and memorization.\

***FUTURE WORKSHOP

• preparing a 2 hour lesson on cinematic storyboarding for 10-20 students at $45 each. Early December.

• 1 on 1 30min animation/storyboard reviews.

8/14/22

sessions are going well and the consistent students are getting better with their analytical ability to simplify and exaggerate from the references. Materials now not only include live model, but also animation key frames for students to draw from. I challenged them to see through the pose by giving clothed models where the waist is overlapped or hidden behind cloth. Another challenge to start memorizing the pose was to have them look at the drawing for 20 seconds and draw without the photo to build a mental library.

- future exercises will include hw for review instead of warmup drawings followed by timed studies.

- breaking down anime models and different styles - useful for working on the job.

- reminder to always encourage students even when they don’t understand the exercise completely but are putting in effort. With each drawing they move closer to become a professional.

6/18/22

The first official sessions have kicked off today and students are happy with what they are learning. Very engaging when seeing them draw while giving tips same time. I’ve prepared the different references to their needs the night before so we jump right into drawing when session starts. I also wrote down a few things in preparation to approach things differently.

- It seems some time Magmastudio may lag a little and clients would end up logging out and back in again to see their drawing. Maybe reducing resolution perhaps? currently set at 4000pixels at 300 dpi. Will try a smaller canvas.

- zoom only allows calls up to 30 mins. but google meeting allows up to 24hr for 1 on 1. will be switching to Google Meeting now on.

- Added the 2 hr session option at booking. The 1 hr goes by pretty fast and even in the try out sessions, I ended up over the time limit.

- a student brought up the idea of a discord server so all students can share their progress and interact. Will look into that (also discord has voice/video call as well)

6/8/22

since 1 hr time can go by pretty fast it will be divided between

1. student warm up drawing for 15mins with given reference, while I observe drawing habits.

2. instructional demo/elaboration on method/correction. 15 mins

3. student applying correction and method under guidance. 20 mins

4. final notes on progress 10mins.

5/29/22

tested Magmastudio a few times and met a few artists with different needs. Overall, it appears their drawings could use more streamlining with better interpretation of what they see.

Storyboard artists - drawing from memory, blocking out character poses fast and break down model sheet. (develop short hand first)

animator - understand force, and flow of their drawing for stronger key poses and breakdown keys. Also execute drawings on model. (note: use model sheets for reference)

designer - streamline design language and understand animation friendly details. Study faces and different styles. apply design/stylization on figure drawing.